Amazon is testing drones in Canada, just 2,000 feet from the U.S. border

Although Amazon is keeping the location of the test site under wraps, it’s reportedly just 2,000 feet from the U.S. border less than half a mile. Amazon has been lobbying the FAA to allow it to start testing drone usage so that it can roll out its Prime Air delivery service. The idea behind Prime Air is to have packages dropped at a customer’s doorstep within 30 minutes of ordering online.

Amazon has been lobbying the FAA to allow it to start testing drone usage so that it can roll out its Prime Air delivery service. The idea behind Prime Air is to have packages dropped at a customer’s doorstep within 30 minutes of ordering online.

Last week the FAA said Amazon could operate unmanned aircraft systems (UAS), but only under strict conditions and for a specific model of drone. Frustratingly for Amazon, the certification came after the drone unit Amazon wanted to test had become obsolete.

“We’re limited [in Seattle] to flying indoors and have been now for a very long time. So we do what’s necessary – we go to places where we can test outside, in this case Canada,” Gur Kimchi, the architect and lead on Prime Air, told The Guardian.

It took Canada just three weeks to approve Amazon’s drone system, the report says. In exchange, Amazon has “virtual carte blanche regarding its entire fleet of drones within its designated airspace.”